Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 12.9

In the application of your principles you must be like the pancratiast, not like the gladiator. For the gladiator lets fall the sword which he uses and is killed; but the other always has his hand, and needs to do nothing else than use it.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 12.9 (tr Long)

In the gladiatorial games, a man’s life would depend upon keeping a hold of his weapons, but in the pancratium, a sort of no-holds-barred form of wrestling and boxing, where only biting and gouging were prohibited, a man would depend solely upon his own skill and strength. 

There is a similar difference in life, between those who rely on the tools given them by circumstance, and those who rely on the tools within their own nature.

Notice how certain people are happy to inform you that they are “self-made”, that they built it all up from nothing, and that all their rich rewards as truly merited.

Now you should already be suspicious when they feel the need to tell you this, somehow craving your approval, but you should also look more closely at what they have actually done. For all of their abilities, notice how their good fortune depends mainly on taking advantage of specific conditions. Yes, they were quite clever or daring, but without a certain state of affairs having conveniently unfolded as it did, they would still be as nothing, and they would have nothing to brag about.

Other people, however, don’t even define themselves by how much fortune and fame they have acquired, and they simply manage to be good people, regardless of whether they became rich or poor, revered or rejected. Their opportunities flow from within, not from without.

Now I may wonder what they have actually done, since they don’t seem to have any real spoils to show for it. There, however, is the heart of the matter. What is the greatest victory? What does it actually require of me? Will I need something in the world to fall into place for me, or will it be enough to merely master myself?

One sort of man needs to pick up a sword in order to be victorious, while the other sort of man needs only his own hands.

Written in 7/2009